Anyone over here know about Overclocking?

[Imakeholesinu]

Ok, so I just bought a 1GB stick of DDR SDRAM (2700). I had already 2 256MB chips and a 512 all 2700. I've had my PC overclocked recently and just put a new cooler on it. It's a p4 2.4 HT running at 2.6. When I boot with the GB of memory on the board I can't make it to windows while overclocked. I can make it fine when it's not overclocked, but if it's overclocked even a hair, I'm fucked.

Microsoft's error report said something about a bad detection of new hardware.

Any help on this would be appreciated since I'd like to run at 2.6~2.8 since it makes a ton of difference in Battlefield 2 (hence why I also picked up the new RAM).

One of the 256 sticks has different timings than all the other chips, could that be the problem?

All 4 ram slots are being used

256
256

512
1024

Could this be because I have both the 256's in the same row?

[Oracle]

Are all the sticks the same brand? If not, that could be an issue. Even if the CAS Latency is different from one stick to another it can cause problems when overclocking. I try to avoid mix-and-matching ram as much as possible.

[Flip]

Along the same lines, i too have found RAM to be extremely fickle. Sometimes you have problems just do to which slots they are in. Some MoBo's dont like all the slots taken and others dont like it when you use 2 diff sizes...

You wont break anything, so my suggestion would just to start the computer with just the 1024 and see if it works, then keep adding a stick at a time.

[Nev]

I overclocked my computer for awhile, but it made it ridiculously unstable, and not worth the effort.

As far as I remember, there's actually no difference in how, say, a 2.4 and 2.6 MHz P4 are made; all of them come out of the same process, and then they're tested at various clock speeds to see how fast they can effectively run stably, and then labeled. Minute (and I mean *minute*) imperfections will limit a processor from running at the top speed levels for its range successfully. So I'm not really a big fan of overclocking as a concept...

That being said, you'd mentioned that you put a new "cooler" on it, which I'm taking to mean a bigger heat-sink or some other form of cooling mechanism for the CPU itself. If that isn't what you meant, you absolutely and completely need to put an industrial-strength heat-sink on the processor, since overheating is usually the first reason overclocked processors stop working. Also, make sure that your case has adequate ventilation, since excess heat from the processor/heat sink will build up in the air inside the case if not.

Beyond that, I wouldn't know what to tell you.

[Imakeholesinu]

Hmm, now I want to fuck around with it. Two of the sticks are the same brand (the 512 and the 1024) the other two are different. I guess I'll have to pull those two and see which one is causing the problem. I'll put the 1GB in slot one and the 512 in slot two and see if that helps at all too.

Actually, there have been a number of articles on how stable the p4 2.4C overclocks. I've had it overclocked as high as 2.8 with the stock cooler running temps 45C idle 60C full load. The new heatsink and fan bring it down 3 degrees on idle but 5-7C cooler when playing BF2. At 2.4 the processor doesn't go above 52C when running BF2.

[Imakeholesinu]

Figured it out. It's the RAM. I put it in all by itself and attempted to overclock and WHAM no video on the restart. It must be bad. Guess it's back to Newegg.